Four star general George S. Patton was one of the preeminent military figures of World
War II.
Under his leadership, American troops reversed the Allies' fortunes in North Africa, liberated
Sicily, and saved the U.S. troops threatened with annihilation during the Nazi counterattack
known as the Battle of the Bulge.
A West Point graduate, Patton was seriously wounded during his service in World War I
and cheated death more than once, making headlines for his outspoken opinions about the conduct
of the Second World War and earning the nickname "Old Blood and Guts."
"Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser."
With such a controversial, storied career, few would have predicted that the warrior
would meet his end in a hospital bed, in his sleep, after a car accident.
By mid 1945, the war in Europe was won.
Patton had requested an assignment commanding troops in the South Pacific, where the U.S.
was finishing its fight against the Japanese Empire, but he was refused.
Instead, Patton was assigned as military governor of Bavaria, where he hired former Nazis to
help run the district and publicly spewed anti-Semitic sentiments at Holocaust victims.
His private conduct, though, worried his superiors even more, as he was agitating to team up
with the remnants of the German army to continue the war against America's Soviet allies.
In October 1945, Dwight Eisenhower relieved Patton of command and gave him a desk job
overseeing a history of the European campaign.
It was a harsh blow for Patton, a man of action.
He confided in his wife that he would be home for Christmas, and might then retire.
He became moody and withdrawn, so his chief of staff, General Hobart Gay, suggested they
go on a hunting trip to lift Patton's spirits.
It was a fateful decision, one that had been rehashed and re-enacted ever since in films
like The Last Days of Patton.
On December 8, two days before he was scheduled to return to America, Patton was riding in
the back seat of a car with Gay through the suburbs of Mannheim, Germany, when an Army
truck abruptly cut them off.
Gay and the driver braced themselves for impact, but Patton had been looking out the side window
and didn't see the truck.
The impact threw him forward against the metal frame of the glass partition between the front
and back seats.
He remained conscious, although his head was cut to the bone.
His neck was damaged as well, and he said, quote, "I think I'm paralyzed."
He added a little later, quote, "This is a helluva way to die."
Patton was transported by ambulance to a hospital about 15 miles away, where it was determined
that he had fractured and dislocated vertebrae, and was paralyzed from the neck down.
On December 11, his wife flew in from the States to be with him.
Given the state of medicine in those times, it was impossible to operate on Patton's neck
in order to relieve the paralysis.
Patton himself seemed resigned to his fate; when he saw his wife, he said to her,
"I'm afraid, Bea, this may be the last time we see each other."
On December 20, an x-ray revealed a pulmonary embolism in his right lung.
The next day, another struck in his left lung, this time fatally.
Patton was buried in a U.S. military cemetery in Luxembourg.
Almost immediately, rumors began to circulate that Patton had been the victim of an assassination
plot, despite all evidence to the contrary.
And those bizarre conspiracy theories have continued even to this day.
In 2014, for instance, Bill O'Reilly, who was then a fixture of Fox News, published
Killing Patton as part of a series of books which speculate wildly about the deaths of
famous historical figures.
O'Reilly claimed that Patton was killed under orders from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin,
telling USA Today,
"We believe he was poisoned in the hospital."
Historians immediately weighed in on the O'Reilly theory, pronouncing it complete and utter
rubbish.
Carlo D'Este, the author of Patton: A Genius for War, told Media Matters for America
"You've got to look at what Patton's situation was.
He was a quadriplegic, he was going to die anyway, he was totally immobilized, he couldn't
move.
What is the point of assassinating him and where did Stalin come from anyway?...Sure,
somebody could have snuck in the hospital, but why would you bother?
You need to verify facts."
And the sad fact is that one of America's preeminent warriors actually died in a routine
traffic accident.
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